SOURCE: Hook, Derek. Review of 9-11, by Noam Chomsky. Theoria (June 2002): 128-30.

In the following review, Hook stresses that, despite his extreme stance on U.S. foreign policy, Noam Chomsky's arguments in 9-11 provide some useful correctives about recent political history.

Foremost amongst Chomsky's gifts as a critical political analyst is an eye for the counter-intuitive. 9-11, a collection of interviews conducted in the immediate aftermath of September 11th, is a case in point. Chomsky's flair for political arguments that run against the grain of commonsense manifests in two particular ways here: a refutation of overly conventionalized modes of response to these events, and the astute use of historical counter-examples with which to challenge such formulaic responses.

Although condemning the attacks, Chomsky focuses on the particular rhetoric of propaganda characteristic of the U.S. media's treatment of these events. The notion of “terrorism”, argues Chomsky, applies as pertinently...